The Memories Remain
by QuasiOuster
Summary: A missing scene from the season 4 episode Still. Daryl doesn't want to talk about his and Michonne's history at that cabin, but Beth is determined to find out. For Daryl, remembering is both a comfort and a curse.


**_Author's Note: Found this lurking around the hard drive. I don't even remember when I wrote this, but it was a long while ago. As always, I own no parts of The Walking Dead, etc., and so on._**

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"So you were here with Michonne." Beth's statement didn't hide her curiosity or her attempts to pry.

Daryl nodded and took a drink out of his mason jar as he gazed beyond the porch and out into the trees.

"Did you guys get into the moonshine too?" Beth asked grinning.

He returned her amusement and took another sip without saying a word, a silent confirmation.

Beth rested her head against the wooden pillar next to her. "I don't know if I can imagine her tipsy, let alone drunk. I'm not sure I even saw her smile ever."

"She smiles," Daryl said a little too quickly. "A real nice one actually. She's aint the kinda person to give it up to just anybody is all." When Beth's eyes turned to him, he pretended to ignore her as if he hadn't revealed anything with his slip-up.

Beth's eyes held a soft affection for him. "That's more like it. Present tense. If anybody made it out of the prison it's her."

Daryl's face fell and Beth regretted saying something to spoil his relaxed mood. He took another long drag from his mason jar. It was actually filled with water; he was done drowning his sorrows since all it ever did was turn him into an asshole. "She's a tough one for sure, but there was a lot of ammo flyin' that day and she was right in the middle of it. Hands tied behind her back. No sword, hell, no weapon of any kind." His features got tight and he looked off in the distance again.

"Don't do that," Beth said gently. "Don't think about the last time you saw her. I know for my dad, I can't …" Her voice broke as memories of her father overwhelmed her. Clearing her throat she pushed those dark thoughts away and forced herself to perk up. Today was supposed to be about escaping all that, if only for a little while. "Anyway, you should think about somethin' else when you think of her." Her glassy-eyed grin returned. "Like, think about what you two were doin' in this cabin."

Daryl cut his eyes at her briefly and relaxed a bit at her genuine curiosity and delight over the things that might have gone down in this place before their arrival.

"What makes you think we were doin' somethin' crazy in this cabin?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "Come on. I'm not that naïve. You knew there was moonshine, knew right where it was. And don't think I didn't notice how it looked like a few jars were missin'. I know this place reminds you of some of the bad stuff goin' on when you were growin' up but when we first got here, you weren't thinkin' about that." Her smile widened. "You were thinkin' about somethin' nice. Somethin' better than a liquor store that's for sure."

Daryl scoffed. "Why are you so keen to know anyway?"

She shrugged and looked out into the forest. "Maybe it's nice to talk about it. You know, normal-feelin'. I liked seein' that first look in your eye when you mentioned her name." Turning back to him, she examined him closely from the rim of her mason jar before setting it carefully beside her. "We weren't close but we got along. She and Maggie talked a lot and Daddy adored her so it was kinda like she was part of the family. I figured it was real hard for her to open up 'cause of the things she'd been through, but she took care of us even when she was gone all the time."

"How do you know what she'd been through," Daryl asked. His tone was defensive, as if she was encroaching on territory he thought of as well-guarded.

Beth wasn't phased by his harshness, either because of the liquor or having been subjected to his temper enough to ignore it. "I don't. Just what I picked up. I know she was real broken up about Andrea." Beth paused, as if she was working all the details out in her head. "And I think she had a kid." Remembering that day in the prison with Michonne holding Judith broke Beth's heart into a million pieces all over again, this time for different reasons.

Daryl didn't look surprised about the reveal and Beth wondered if Michonne had told him or if he'd just had the same suspicions as she. If he knew something, he wasn't telling, though.

Another sip and another few minutes passed. "She had her reasons for keeping to herself. Would've opened up given a little time. She'd already started 'fore everything went to shit."

Beth nodded and took another drink of her booze. Daryl glanced at her and took a long drag of his water as if to clear his head.

"The last time we was here, we did take a few of them jars of moonshine. But it aint what you think. Herd 'a walkers had rolled up on us while we were scoutin' out a lumber yard and got in between us and my bike. We had to run and we found this place. We stayed inside tryin'a think about how we'd go about circlin' back 'round. I remember we fought about who'd get to climb up in the tree and see which way they were wanderin'." He shook his head at the memory and Beth giggled.

"Somethin' tells me she won."

Daryl scoffed. "Fightin' with that woman is about as big a waste of breath as reasonin' with one 'a them walkers out there."

Beth laughed again. "Is that why you and Rick and Carl do whatever she says?"

"Aint even like that," Daryl said but without any fire. Beth flashed him a look signaling that they both knew it was true.

"You wanna hear this or not," he shot back with the slightest grin." Beth gestured drunkenly for him to continue.

"Anyway, so she's up right there," he says, pointing to a nearby tree a few feet away from the clearing that leads to the shack, "and I scope out the rest of the place. I seen enough backwoods distilleries to know when a moonshine stash is around somewhere. So she comes back down and it's on."

Beth perks up at that. "It's on like you both get really drunk and then start actin' silly before you jump each others' bones?"

Daryl stares at here with narrowed eyes and then offers a chuckle before taking another swallow. "Girl, I know where your mind goes after a few sips. Straight to the damn gutter."

"Oh come on, Daryl. You mean to tell me that you and Michonne never got up to nothin' bein' out here all on your own all them months? The rest of us aint stupid, you know. We saw how you two got on when you were at the prison, all doin' stuff together and jokin' and all that," she teased. "And then you'd get to fussin' like you didn't like gettin' under each other's skin." This time it was the young blonde that narrowed her eyes at him. "'Cept sometimes, you'd fuss about stuff like her runnin' off and then it'd get a little too serious. When she'd leave after that it seemed to make you sad." She stared at him at that last part. Truth was, his expression now wasn't far off from those days.

"Didn't like her goin' off alone," he said, not even bothering to get mad at her prying. "When you're out in that," he said, waving at the treeline and beyond, "you gotta be on the same page. I guess me and her, we just seemed to pretty much start off like that. It helped both of us get past the folks we lost and remember that there's still livin' to do right here and now. Took her longer to get at that." He saw her raise an eyebrow at him; given his current attitude, the point wasn't lost on him. "We didn't need to do a whole lotta talkin', we just kinda got each other. But the only thing we got up to was watchin' each other's back."

"Nuh uh, Dixon. I don't believe that for a second. Y'all wandered around together for weeks and every time you'd come back, it was like you'd be closer. You're saying nothing happened at all?" Beth picked her her jar at and waved it at him after taking a swallow. "She'd go out the gates and you'd get that cute sad puppy dog face and then when she'd come back you'd get your happy puppy dog face. The way you'd look whenever anyone mentioned her name while she was gone? And you say that y'all weren't gettin' it on out here?" She giggled leaned back and swirled her liquor around. "That—that's bullshit and you know it." Her indignant play at challenging him amused Daryl and he shook his head at her."

"You're welcome to think whatever you want, girlie."

She faux-glowered at him and drank some more. "Fine, so when she climbed down from the tree you didn't get drunk and hook up. So what happened then?"

"I'd tell you if ya stopped interrupting with your romance novel shit." That made Beth giggle again. "Anyway, we took some of that there moonshine and made some fucking flamethrowers, Molotav cocktail-style. Snuck up on them walkers and bombed those assholes out the way. When they got distracted by all the fire, we circled around, grabbed the bike and got the fuck outta there. Meant to take more of that shit back to the prison, but we couldn't carry it and just needed to get gone."

Beth rolled her eyes, disgusted. "That story aint as good as mine."

"What's not cool about flamin' a bunch of walkers from the trees and then sneakin' 'round 'em to make a badass escape on the other side? Hell, we rolled through the smoke and shit on our way out and laughed at 'em."

"I guess that's fine, but I think it would've been better if you'd just holed up here all night and done some shots and hooked up." At that, her face fell and she looked as if she was going to cry. "Is that why this place made you so upset? Maybe you regret not sayin' or doin' somethin' with her before we got split up?"

Daryl looked away, a little guilty. He went to take a drink but instead let the jar dangle from his fingers. The silence settled and the rhythmic crackling of the wind rustling the trees kept them from focusing on all the undead threats that lurked somewhere out in the world—and their friends and family who probably got farther and farther from them with each passing day. Daryl drained his glass finally.

"I got regrets, but that aint one of 'em." Setting the jar on the ground, he stretched his legs out and leaned his head back onto the wooden post of the porch.

Beth nodded and took another sip. "Well, she's out there somewhere. I know it. They all are. Maybe we'll find 'em tomorrow or maybe we won't. But they're out there and they love us." She looked over to where he sat, sulking but present. "And we love them too. No harm in keepin' that in mind."

"Yeah, I guess." She seemed glad that at least his tone was accepting and not defeated like before.

Wanting to push his sadness away, Beth smiled at him. "Still, I aint convinced y'all didn't get into somethin' out here. I think you're lyin' 'bout that, Daryl."

He frowned for a moment. "I aint lied 'bout nothin'. Hell, you should know by now there aint no time to get into nothin' when you're on the run."

"We're takin' a break now."

"Hope we aint the fools for it too. You wanna survive, you stay your ass on point. You wanna play around, you do it behind gates and fences where you don't gotta worry about gettin' killed while you're playin' around."

Thinking about that advice, Beth reluctantly and drunkenly nodded in agreement. "I know we gotta be careful," she whined. "You're always tellin' me that now that we're all partnered up. Guess it makes sense even if it's boring. It's probably no fun to—" She sat up straight and waved a finger at him. "I see what you did there!"

Daryl reached over to the jug of water he'd brought out and poured some more into his jar to hand to her.

"I aint done nothin'," he said grinning.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but took the jar. "Behind the gates, huh? Well now I know what y'all were doin' in Tower 3 all those times."

"We was gettin' shit done, that's what we were doin'." He leaned back again as she took a sip of his offered water. "Most of the time," he mumbled, barely audible.

Beth's shocked face turned to laughter. "I knew it. It's cute."

Daryl snorted as if offended. But then he added, "Like I said, she's gotta nice smile."

Her chuckles made Daryl laugh too. "I'm glad you got to enjoy it. And like I said, when you think of her, think of that. Remember that smile." Her satisfied expression on any other day would have irked him, but he couldn't find fault at the moment with her advice. He appreciated it.

Daryl looked away again, and a ghost of a grin appeared as he did just that.

"When we got back from that run, after getting past those smoked out walkers, that was when we…you know. We'd been kinda buildin' up to it, and there was somethin' 'bout the adrenaline or the danger or I don't even know what. We'd finished puttin' stuff up at the bottom of the tower and we just stood there, thinkin' on it; how other folks mighta died or still been out there. But not us 'cause we know how to handle ourselves out there. Felt like we coulda done anything if it was the two of us against the world. And then she gave me that fuckin' smile" He bowed his head and chuckled. "But even after what we'd just been through she knew I was too chickenshit to make a move so she..."

"Jumped your bones?" Beth offered.

"Yeah," he said laughing. "And once she went there, well, I wasn't gon' let her get the best of me. That's how it all started. Then she was off again on her trips and I was doin' stuff 'round the prison. And then shit just went to hell."

"Don't matter what happened later," Beth insisted. "It was good for a while."

"Yeah, it was." Beth went back to her moonshine, and Daryl continued to stare out into the night.

"Night 'fore we left on that last run, Michonne mentioned she'd come through here and that everything was like we'd left it. We'd joked about it. I didn't wanna come back here."

Beth nodded. It made sense for how things had escalated since they'd arrived. "I'm sorry."

Daryl waved her off. "Like you said, I'm 'a remember the good stuff." He stared at her all calm and hazy-eyed. "And now I get to laugh 'bout your drunk ass throwin' back that moonshine like its kook-aid."

Beth broke out into laughter at that, one of those prolonged, quiet fits of giggles that only seem to happen when one was drunk off their ass. After she'd calmed down and caught her breath, she sniffed at the jar in her hand and then picked up the other one trying to figure out which was booze and which was water. When she took a drink, Daryl wasn't sure which she'd opted for.

"You're just jealous 'cause I nailed this drinkin' thing." He made to protest but Beth silenced him with a dramatic wave of her arm, liquid splashing around in each jar. "Ssshh, don't kill my mood. Just sit there and think sweet thoughts. I'm gonna do the same."

Instead of fighting her on it, he just sat back and did as Beth asked. He was so tired and still filled with so much darkness. When things had gone to shit before, all he'd had was Merle to bring him down in the best and worst displays of family he'd known. But it was different now, he kept telling himself. She wouldn't bring him down and she'd keep saying how much he'd been loved and how he'd become a better man with their people than he'd been all his life. She reminded him of what all those folks in his new family had meant to him. And she wouldn't let him forget that he'd shared something real good with a battle-scarred woman named Michonne who'd done these same things for him when they'd been out on the road so many months ago, except without having to say a word. And that damn woman was too fucking amazing not to be out there somewhere kickin' ass.

Even so, it didn't change that she was lost to him now. But he wouldn't lose the young woman across from him because he could not go through this again.

So as they sat there together, he did think of the good times back at the prison, and the fact that he didn't have to be out here alone. Looking around him at the cabin and the clearing and the forest he'd explored in the last year, he relaxed at the memory of Michonne and all those months and stolen moments he'd had her to himself. When he closed his eyes he saw her in that tree smirking down at him before scaling back to the ground; he recalled the fierce light in her eyes as she'd thrown that first flaming jar right into a pile of walkers; he felt her arms around him as they sped away on his motorcycle in the midst of smoke and ash and nervous sweat; he relived the sensation of her slick body pressed to his as they came down from that experience together, this time alone and safe and unrelenting until they'd both been satisfied.

And when he opened his eyes again, the last image was of that special smile of hers.

 _Fini_


End file.
